Pages

Monday, November 3, 2014

An American classic and great bestseller for over thirty years, A Separate Peace
is timeless in its description of adolescence during a period when the
entire country was losing its innocence to the second world war.

Set at a boys boarding school in New England during the early years of World War II, A Separate Peace
is a harrowing and luminous parable of the dark side of adolescence.
Gene is a lonely, introverted intellectual. Phineas is a handsome,
taunting, daredevil athlete. What happens between the two friends one
summer, like the war itself, banishes the innocence of these boys and
their world.

A bestseller for more than thirty years, A Separate Peace is John Knowles crowning achievement and an undisputed American classic.

About the AuthorJohn Knowles
(September 16, 1926 - November 29, 2001), b. Fairmont, West Virginia,
was an American novelist, best known for his novel A Separate Peace.

A
1945 graduate of the Phillips Exeter Academy in Exeter, New Hampshire,
Knowles graduated from Yale University as a member of the class of
1949W. A Separate Peace is based upon Knowles' experiences at Exeter
during the summer of 1943. The setting for The Devon School is a thinly
veiled fictionalization of Phillips Exeter. The plot should not be taken
as autobiographical, although many elements of the novel stem from
personal experience. In his essay, "A Special Time, A Special Place,"
Knowles wrote:

The only elements in A Separate Peace which were
not in that summer were anger, violence, and hatred. There was only
friendship, athleticism, and loyalty.

The secondary character
Finny (Phineas) was the best friend of the main character, Gene. Knowles
took to his grave the secret of whether Finny was all a part of his
imagination, or an actual friend whose true identity was never spoken.

Gore
Vidal, in his memoir Palimpsest, acknowledges that he and Knowles
concurrently attended Phillips Exeter, with Vidal two years ahead. Vidal
states that Knowles told him that the character Brinker, who
precipitates the novel's crisis, is based on Vidal. "We have been
friends for many years now," Vidal said, "and I admire the novel that he
based on our school days, A Separate Peace."

Knowles' other
significant works are Morning in Antibes, Double Vision: American
Thoughts Abroad, Indian Summer, The Paragon, and Peace Breaks Out. None
of these later works were as well received as A Separate Peace.

A
resident of Southampton, New York, Knowles wrote seven novels, a book
on travel and a collection of stories. He was the winner of the William
Faulkner Award and the Rosenthal Award of the National Institute of Arts
and Letters. In his later years, Knowles lectured to university
audiences.

My Thoughts

I went back to the Devon School not long ago, and found it looking oddly newer than when I was a student there fifteen years before.

This is a classic and the story of boys at a prep school. Gene and Finny are roommates and good friends. Finny is athletic, charming and easy-going. Gene is more academic, and seems envious of Finny. There is an incident involving a fall from a tree that changes everything.

I had a hard time with this book. It is a relatively fast read at just over 200 pages. I think you can't help but envision Dead Poet's Society (one of my favorite movies) as you read it. The writing is good and the characters well developed. However I just found it boring. I kept waiting to be drawn in, and that never happened. In fact, I went to my book club discussion for this book, and couldn't even remember any details about what had happened. It is one of those books that within a day or two of completing it, I had completely forgotten it.So if you like the classics, like books about the human psyche and the relationships between young boys discovering themselves, give this quick read a try. For me? I just never got it.Buy Now:Barnes and NobleAmazonIndieBoundMy Rating: